How does the victim feel: Questions for Sexual Assault Response Services

(NEWS CENTER) -- Tom Johnston was named a suspect in a sexual assault case on Thursday. If he was alive today, he would be chraged with Class B Gross Sexual Assault.

The victim in this case is not being named, which is standard procedure in sex assault cases.

A lot of comments on our social media pages focus on what she may be going through at this time. We took those comments to Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine to get some answers.

"One of the myths that surrounds sexual assault is the myth of false reporting," says Melanie Sachs, Executive Director of Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine. "Actually, only 2-8 percent of reported sexual assaults are false reporting. So it's really important for victims and survivors to be able to have immediate, and ongoing support after a trauma."

"For any victim, it is hard to be believed often times," says Sachs. "One of the things that contributes to that is because of the status of the perpetrator within the community, so people say, 'Oh, it couldn't possibly be so-and-so.' Around the myths that we continually try to come up against is anyone who comes forward to talk about assault should be believed, and statistics bring that out. It should be believed and thoroughly investigated, no matter who it is."